I don’t know if all of my friends and family are aware, but our island was hit full-force, head on by typhoon Nari yesterday, with wind speeds at 110 MPH and 1.5 inches of rain per hour (from 6 a.m to about 5 p.m.). The airport grounded 162 flights, which meant our hotel was full. Some good things can come out of disaster. Although we had a half-day blackout, which meant our customers weren’t the happiest in the world.
There are eleven people dead or missing, one of them is a Jeju University professor, apparently.
The storm ripped the sheet metal door to our roof off of its hinges, and blew our hotel sign off. When I drove to school this morning, I witnessed most of what had happened. About 10% of the traffic signals were either severely bent, broken in half, or completely mowed down. There were trees on cars. There were cars that were parked on a slope that had been washed down onto the tops of other cars. It was pretty amazing seeing a minivan parked on top of a compact sedan. I guess you would actually call it “an even more compact sedan”. The university was a mess. All of the floors were caked in mud.
I made a “video” of our hotel when we were in the middle of it all!
7 Comments
September 17, 2007 at 3:05 pm
The typhoon made the sky glow towards dusk here. It was really odd. I should have taken pictures.
September 17, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Shiz, no i had no idea about that. How often does a typhoon that powerful roll through there? Glad to hear you guys are all ok over there. Being from the area I’m sure Eun Hye was calm and collected…but the san diego boy? clutching something solid no doubt hehe.
September 17, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Eun Hye and Lani are in Japan, sipping lemonade on a hot Sunday afternoon in the middle of their 10 day vacation. I’m here standing on the roof trying to salvage a door against 100 MPH winds hoping that it doesn’t come completely off the hinges and break both of my legs.
We had one typhoon in San Diego when I was a kid, but I hardly remember it. I think this was a particularly powerful, direct hit, so it made big news in Korea. Usually the island just sees a couple normal-sized typhoons every year. (You can tell they were not prepared for something on this scale, considering they have to repair every speed-camera, and a good portion of the stop signals, and I don’t think they like to make that a yearly tradition.)
September 18, 2007 at 9:24 am
It’s good to know that you and your family are safe, but to be honest, I’m still more relieved about other things. (Started here if you forgot. Ha ha.)
September 18, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Thanks Deas. I’m glad that you weren’t anywhere near the Alamo, especially inside it, in February, 1836. It would have been cool to meet Davy Crockett, but the downside totally outweighs that, I think.
September 18, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Hi, I think your blog is cool, do you mind if I ad it to my blogroll?
September 18, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Sure, go ahead
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